Supplements for Healing Dog Liver Shunt and MVD (Healing Model)

"My vet was preparing me for the death of my dog Buddy 6 months ago. I had been informed that he was in liver failure and I should start watching for signs that he was coming to the end of his life. He had been through so much over the last two years including bladder stone surgery, potential Cushing's Disease, a diagnosis of Diabetes and NOW to be told liver failure, I was devastated and at a total loss for what to do to try and get my baby healthy.

After doing some Internet searches, I found Rick and what a lifesaver he has been! Buddy has been on his program for about 6 months and we have gone from counting the days until he would be gone, to a healthy, happy, energetic dog! Recent blood work shows the miraculous recovery he has made in the last six months. His ALT number went from 473 in March 2018 to unreadable in July to almost within healthy range of 155 in October. His ALP number went from 1918 in March, to 1833 in July to 181 in October! His Glucose number went from 498 in March to 321 in July to 102 in October which is in healthy range.

The numbers don't lie, Buddy is healthy! I am so thankful to have found Rick. His support and knowledge through this whole process has been amazing!"

Lori HowardWestminster CO

Can you depend 100% on the improved diet you are feeding your dog as the only natural remedy for reversing liver shunts or increasing poor liver health and poor liver function? I believe that the majority of these problems can be treated naturally through diet and whole food supplements. My success rate with these cases is over 90%.

I wish that food alone was the answer, but it is not. If we lived many decades ago maybe we could. 100 years ago or more people lived in an environment where the soil was rich with mineral sediments and as a result, the plants were enabled to produce their own nutrient richness from their primary growth medium (soil). Thus, the animals who ate these foods became well nourished.

Dr. Howard Hagglund, former faculty member at the University of Oklahoma, stated that “(the) best way to get both minerals and vitamins is from food. But foods today seldom contain enough essential minerals and vitamins...because (our) farmland has been ruined. It only takes ten years of intensive modern farming methodology to exhaust the minerals in any tract of land.” Agricultural land is typically fertilized with only potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen. “Unfortunately, many other essential minerals (including molybdenum, manganese, magnesium and zinc) are not replenished.”

Even organically grown foods may not contain all the minerals that plants need to develop full nutrient richness because the minerals are not put back into the soil along with the organic matter.

A natural healing program for dog liver shunt, HMVD and poor liver health in dogs is to supplement your pet’s diet with nutrient rich foods. In addition to improving your pet’s diet by giving him/her fresh organically grown meats, fruits, vegetables and sea veggies and the whole food supplements I will discuss in this page, you have an unbeatable diet and supplement program to help heal your pet’s liver problems and help him/her regain good health.

A Health Model That Makes Sense

Photographer: Suat Eman

As I read holistic books to find answers on how to help dog's health conditions, I read a few books written by medical doctors outlining a new discipline in medicine called Nutritional Medicine. I was very impressed by the logic they presented in these books as to why degenerative conditions occur. I was also impressed by their health model that outlined how to reverse liver conditions with diet and supplements. In these books I found a natural treatment that made a lot of sense.

I've worked with many dogs suffering from bladder, kidney and liver conditions and applied this health model to their conditions and as a result many of these pets today live with healthy functioning bodies. Let me share with you what I learned, because if this makes sense to you, then you’ll be motivated to do what I recommend to help your pet’s bladder, kidney or liver condition.

I am not a Veterinarian and do not give Veterinary Medical Advice. Nor do I advise you on the use of Prescription medications for your dog. Please consult with your Veterinarian for this advice or find a local Holistic Veterinarian. Consult a Veterinarian as well for any Medical Emergency.

I help you with what to feed your dog.

Nutritional Medicine

The Nutritional Medicine approach includes principles that are of great benefit to the treatment of liver and digestive system diseases in pets. These principles support the following:

1) better digestion and assimilation of foods through the use of probiotics and enzymes;

Hundreds of pet owners have used this health model to help their pets from with chronic degenerative conditions including bladder, kidney, liver and urinary tract diseases. Additionally, many of the studies and books written by Nutritional Medicine doctors give us the scientific reasons behind why this specific health model and the supplements used have helped with a wide variety of health-related conditions.

Why Does Nutritional Medicine Work?

Nutritional Medical physicians believe that most degenerative conditions have their origin in the malfunction of the digestive tract and the liver’s elimination processes. In other words, illness can be directly related to problems of the digestive and liver detoxification systems and their related influence on immune, nervous and endocrine system functions. Therefore, when the health of the digestive and liver detoxification systems is addressed, the pet’s body is given the opportunity to reverse many degenerative conditions. If the degenerative condition is labeled, bladder stones, UTI, liver shunt, seizures etc., a Nutritional Medicine doctor will first recommend addressing the health of the gastrointestinal tract (GI). Once the GI tract is normalized, then the liver detoxification system should be supported and strengthened.

Today, through the efforts of Nutritional Medicine doctors, we have hundreds of clinical studies and scientific research that confirm what many of us have heard so often from folk medicine practitioners: “Stomach problems are the cause of all ills” or “Death begins in the colon.”

Jeffrey Anderson, M.D., wrote an article called “How Problems with Digestion Can Cause Illness Anywhere”, and in this article he explains why you should address the health of the gastrointestinal tract first, no matter what the name of the degenerative condition. He explains that “new information on the dynamics of the body make it clear that conditions in the digestive tract affect the entire system” (Nichols, et al., 1999, p.125). The “...degradation of the gastrointestinal environment is one of the primary points at which health is lost. What we now know is that the same toxins associated with GI dysfunction are frequently absorbed and distributed to other parts of the body. First they place a burden on the liver and the immune system. If liver overload occurs, there will be spill over, and some of the toxins will be passed on to other organs or tissues” (p. 125).

“Often, it’s a weak link in the system that will be hit by the damage - an organ that can be anywhere in the body that is most likely to be vulnerable. The vulnerability may be inherited, caused by physical injury, toxic exposure, or poor diet” (p.125). For example, “if the sensitive system is the lungs, toxins that originate in the gut and circulate in the bloodstream may manifest as allergies” (p.125).

Len Saputo, M.D., in his article, ”Harmful Flora”, also believes that if the gastrointestinal tract goes out of balance and the liver detoxification system breaks down, the pet’s entire immune system can malfunction in three ways. First, it can be weakened and the result called an immune suppression disease (i.e., cancer). Second, it can overreact and become hyper responsive to normal stimuli; this occurs in skin diseases, and food allergies. Third, a malfunctioning immune system can cause auto immune reactions, where antibodies target your pet’s own tissues, as in rheumatoid arthritis (p.60).

Jerry Stine, M.D., in his article, “How Digestion Works”, explains that the gastrointestinal tract is the largest immune organ in our body. Eighty percent of all our protective immune globulins are produced in the digestive tract (p.16). When this large, strategically placed immune system member (the GI tract) isn’t working well, your pet’s defenses are lowered and once their barriers are down, it becomes more difficult to defend against invaders.

Nutritional Medicine Strategies to Reverse Degenerative Conditions:

Nutritional Medicine doctors including, Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, Dr. Len Saputo and Dr. Jerry Stine, believe that cleansing and supporting the GI tract and the liver can and will clear the body of any and most degenerative conditions.

• First you detoxify the GI tract.

• Then get the liver detoxification system working.

• And finally clean up the downstream consequences, which include the toxins in the tissues and cells.

Nutritional Medicine doctors believe that you can’t deal with the downstream conditions (symptoms in the body such as arthritis, skin conditions, bladder stones..etc.), until you’ve treated the upstream problem(s) in the gut and liver (p.132). When you clean up the upstream issues and the liver, then the downstream consequences tend to go away.

Nutritional Medicine Solution for Most Degenerative Conditions:

The 4Rs Solution:

1)Remove: Abnormal kinds/amounts of intestinal microorganisms (parasites, bacterial pathogens, small intestinal overgrowth such as yeast, and food antigens). This can be done by repairing “leaky” intestinal membranes.

4) Repair: Replace or augment with nutrients necessary to support healing of intestinal lining, plus adequacy of calories, and adequacy of fiber. Support the liver detoxification system through the use of antioxidants and food based nutritional supplements (pp. 181-182).The 4 R’s are a great process for the treatment of liver, bladder, kidney and heart diseases.

The Difference is in the Quality Of The Nutritional Supplements:

There are a multitude of veterinarians practicing Nutritional Medicine today, and they recommend supporting better digestion, better nutrition, and better protection against oxidative stress. However, when it comes to supplements, most Nutritional Medicine veterinarians recommend standard man-made supplements in their isolated, single, separated or chemically-manufactured form, such as zinc, copper, vitamins B, C, E and beta carotene, to reverse degenerative conditions.

I don’t believe vitamins and minerals should be taken in single and chemically-manufactured forms . For example, vitamins are intricate, interrelated, integrated, and united organic nutritive groups. Nature made them as an indistinguishable part of foods for the benefit of human health. Vitamins are inseparable as working nutrients from trace elements, minerals, proteins, and other elements.

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Chemists have attempted to isolate and identify some of the components of these food complexes, labeling the seemingly “active” elements as vitamins or other nutrients. Yet there is no possible way that even the sum of the parts is equal to the whole. It is only the whole food, intact and unaltered, that works as a nutritional source and therefore is the best liver shunt treatment. The isolated parts are not recognized by the body as foods. In large amounts, these isolated chemicals function more like drugs, which stimulate or suppress biochemical functions, instead of providing nourishment for the cells to carry on their vital activities.

I think Nutritional Medicine doctors are “right on the money” when it comes to explaining why degenerative health conditions occur such as the case with liver shunts or poor liver health, but when it comes to the solution which is their supplement program, they are mainly providing the typical man-made and chemically-manufactured supplements. I prefer the use of whole food supplements for treatment of degenerative conditions because it is based on the philosophy that “Food is the Best Medicine.”

Searching for the Ultimate Whole Food Supplements:

There are certainly better alternatives than man-made supplements; i.e. organic whole food supplements. Whole food supplements are far superior in their quality and effectiveness for reversing liver and other diseases because they are produced in their natural and complex configuration.

Photographer: Suat Eman

Why whole food products work better is based on the philosophy that the animal body is a marvelously designed living organism with the ability to grow, regulate, repair, and defend itself when given natural, high quality, full spectrum nutrients.

So provide your and your dog's body with the nutrients it needs to thrive and get out of the way.

I don’t know of too many companies that produce high quality whole food supplements. However, I came across one company that has been in the whole food supplement business for over thirty years. I was so impressed with their philosophy of producing whole food supplements that I paid a visit to their manufacturing facility. I was very impressed with everything they do to preserve the quality of their whole food supplements from the time the foods are harvested to the time they are introduced to the public as supplements.

I attribute a large percentage of the success in helping degenerative health conditions as a result of the use of these wild-crafted, organic and natural whole food supplements.

Since my health philosophy has always been that “food is our best medicine”, I found their supplements to align with my philosophy. I have been recommending their products for over twenty years. Hundreds of pets have been helped from these whole food products. I'm not surprised, because when it comes to healing pets, there is nothing more powerful than supplementing their diet with whole foods, especially if they are wild-crafted and organically grown.

If your goal is to find a natural treatment for your dog’s liver shunt, MVD, or your dog's poor liver health may I recommend that you follow this health model which is the same as the Nutritional Medicine health model with the exception that I recommend the use of whole food supplements and not man-made supplements.

The Supplement Program is as Follows:

1. Supportbetter digestion and assimilation of foods through the use of probiotics and enzyme supplements (These supplements must be micro-blended with mineral rich foods).

With the use of whole food supplements you can improve your pet’s bladder and urinary tract pH balance, decrease the toxic burden of an acidic diet and thereby take the stress off the liver and kidneys. With fewer toxins there is less need for a constant high level defense effort and everything in your pet’s body just starts to work better. Dr. Jeffrey Anderson summarizes the whole concept of healing so beautifully when he said: “you can’t deal with the downstream problems (symptoms in the body) until you have addressed the upstream problem(s) (i.e., malfunctions in the gut)” (Nichols, p. 132).

"It's been about a month since we started Gus and Evie on the whole foods and supplement diet. We've had spectacular results, bordering on miraculous. We were informed about a month ago that our 6 month old, 3 LB Yorkie, Spartacus Augustus (Gus) had a liver shunt that was not operable. Because we loved him we began looking for other options and were fortunate enough to have found your liver shunt site.

Gus had been experiencing episodes from the proteins and byproducts in his diet. I had noticed his aimless wandering, but the episodes were much harder to endure, rapid shuddering, drooling, vomiting, diarrhea and fever. The vet first thought he had ingested some type of toxin. Eventually another vet advised Gus likely had a shunt. We had a CT scan and confirmed the shunt. He would most likely not survive surgery.They said our only option was to put him down.

That's when we found you. After we spoke, we began weaning Gus and Evie onto the whole foods and supplement diet. By the third day Gus was acting like a puppy again. After another week he was even better. Both dogs are thriving, Gus is better than ever!"

Eddie & Debbie KesterSantee CA

To learn more about the specific recommended supplements, click on the following:

Other supplements needed for supporting your dog’sliver and kidneys

Probiotics and Enzymes for liver shunt in dogs& liver problems in dogsClick here

If your dog needs immediate helpClick Here​The statements in this page have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The advice and suggested products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes only and must not be taken as “medical advice”.

The information and directions in these writings, individually and collectively, are in no way to be considered as a substitute for consultations with a duly licensed Veterinarian regarding diagnosis and/or treatment of disease and are not intended to diagnose or treat your dog.